IN-HOSPITAL INFECTIONS HIKE COSTS

Some 2 million patients a year are contracting dangerous infections in America's hospitals, increasing medical costs by about $2 billion a year, Discover magazine reported Sunday.

The $2 billion figure represents 15 percent of all hospital costs in America, according to the article in Discover, which warns hospitals can be hazardous to one's health.

"It sounds like a joke, but a hospital is no place for a sick person to be," said Dr. Lowell Levin, professor of public health at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

The range of diseases, which often complicate the reason why the patient is in the hospital in the first place, are often tied to infections spread through the hospital.

Discover said the illnesses add an average of four extra days to an infected patient's hospital stay and at least $800 to the patient's bill.

"As many as 300,000 patients die each year from these infections, which, if they were reported accurately, would make them the 10th leading cause of death in this country," the report contends.

The illnesses are called "nosocomial illnesses" from the Greek word for hospital.

One explanation for the problem -- which the magazine says is on the rise -- is the drop in "infection control personnel" at hospitals across America trying to cut costs. Total hospital employment dropped by 2.3 percent, or 73,000 people last year, it said.

Another more direct cause of the problem was that hospitals are re-using equipment that was meant to be disposable after one use, the magazine reported.

Robert Sharbaugh of the Association for Practitioners of Infection Control agrees.

"We tell our 6,000 members that the organization is officially against re-use. We're also realistic enough to know that it's happening," said Sharbaugh.

Potent antibiotics are being developed to combat virulent hospital germs but, the article concludes, the real answer is prevention.